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Do You Have Pride and Joy in Your Senior Living Community?

When you arrive at the Walker Methodist Plaza senior living community in Anoka, you are sure to meet Orville. Orville is a long time resident of Anoka and he is waiting to meet you! Orville has an uncanny knack of introducing himself to everyone who steps foot into the community.

A POCKET FULL OF PERSONALITY

He sits in his wheelchair and propels himself with his feet across the Walker Methodist Senior Care Plaza campus, multiple times a day, all day long. When he locks eyes with a new visitor, he will wheel over to them and ask them a simple question, “do you want to see my pride and joy”? The visitor will inevitably agree. Orville will then ask you to guess what it is first. After a few seconds of thinking about this, the visitor usually replies by guessing it is his grandkids. Orville takes out of his right breast pocket a small 2x2 piece of paper and shows the visitor a picture of Pride and Joy dish soap. Laughter erupts almost instantaneously, and light-hearted karma fills the room.

Where are your pride and joy?

What I love about this story and the many stories that fill the hallways, senior living community spaces, and apartments at Walker Methodist, is that Orville has made this community his home. The staff and residents are Orville’s friends, helping him make sure his pocket is filled with copied pieces of paper, cut to size, waiting for the next visitor to arrive for his big introduction to the community. I have even had to keep a guest entertained while he wheels back to his room for more “supplies”.

Pride and joy come in many shapes and sizes. Pride in the community that we live, pride in the home we have made, and pride in introducing our friends to our family. Our goal at Walker Methodist is that each of our residents feels this pride in their home. Our guests are your guests. We create opportunities for residents to show off their home all year long. For some, they invite their friends and families to a holiday party, an ice cream social, a dance, Sunday brunch, or a beautiful walk outside. The best part – we do the dishes!

We hope you can experience the pride and joy our residents, like Orville, enjoy every day. Explore one of our communities and we will reserve a spot for a lunch or dinner with your new friends!

Written by Anneliese Peterson

As the Vice President of Operations, Anneliese Peterson manages the operations and services provided by Walker Methodist’s housing communities. This includes providing leadership and vision for each site in their effort to offer the highest quality customer service.